It’s only been up and running for six months, but Perth startup FlashMop is seeing a serious uptick in business, partly thanks to the “Marie Kondo effect”.

Launched in October 2018 by founder Megan Harrison, FlashMop is an on-demand cleaning service, allowing users to book a cleaner at a moment’s notice and including an Uber-style reviewing system.

Since the beginning of 2019, the startup has seen 250% growth in its user base in Perth, where it now has 600 users.

It also launched in Sydney this week, where it racked up 300 additional users in the first two days.

Harrison tells StartupSmart she was working in mining health and safety in a remote community in Western Australia and flying in and out from Perth, when she became pregnant with her first child.

“I realised the lifestyle probably wasn’t conducive to starting a family,” she says.

“I started to think of ways I could create an alternative income stream for myself and use that pregnancy to start a catalyst to try something new with my life.”

I was just friends asking around for recommendations for good cleaners that got Harrison thinking about why it was so hard to find a good cleaner, and the seeds of FlashMop were sown.

“People want something easy and convenient,” she explains.

Harrison puts the uptick in interest largely down to the “Marie Kondo effect”.

The tidying guru’s TV series Tidying Up With Marie Kondo went live on Netflix in January, sparking an international flurry of decluttering.

“Everyone is really house proud at the moment,” Harrison says.

“It’s been wonderful timing for us … in conjunction with that.”

As they’re clearing out their clutter, “everyone wants a sparkling clean home as well”.

However, Harrison also puts some of her success down to her “common-sense approach”.

The founder has no experience in the tech space, and “just decided to have a crack”.

So, the product had to be simple.

“I’ve taken a really black-and-white approach,” she says.

“That’s probably got something to do with the end result, which has been a really user-friendly, basic app, which is usable for everyone in the community.”

A slow burn?

Now that FlashMop is live in Sydney, Harrison is planning a national rollout, starting with Melbourne within the next three months, and staggering launches in Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra throughout the year.

“That’s the beauty of this tech space or the app world,” she says.

“Now that I’ve developed and I’ve got that resource there, there’s no reason we can’t pretty easily roll it out.”

The biggest barrier to this, however, will be marketing.

Harrison doesn’t have much of a marketing budget, she says. So far, the majority of her exposure has come from word-of-mouth, Facebook and Instagram, and some media coverage.

“I have had to source anything and everything I can that’s free or very minimal in cost,” she says.

Despite a strong start, the founder feels she might be in for “a bit of a slow burn in terms of getting that real big exposure”.

But, she’s happy with that.

“It’s not going to be a million-dollar company overnight, and I know that,” Harrison says.

“Through word of mouth, hopefully, I can continue to generate a steady flow of bookings, rather than that huge exponential growth.”

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